Talk:Digital Rights
International response to the DMCA? Hullo, we are about to adopt a DMCA in Australia. * As with many nations around the world it comes as a compulsory prerequisite for a trade negotiation with the USA. * It is presented to Australians as a not negotiable with only small exemptions being open for negotiation. * I feel it is time that people around the world worked together to table an alternative copyright act to the international treaty table. * It feels like a good project for campaigns.wiki because as bloggers and wiki folk we understand the benefits of an open peer to peer community. All the best. Lucychili 22:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC) Hate site troll Twice an anonymous user in IP 65.95.60.170 (see the history of the main page) has attempted to add a link to a hate site. Common Ground We have to find some common ground here. This article has been reverted or had additions deleted far too many times with no reasons given. This article needs to be added-to, and reverting every change isn't helping anything. *On problem is that Digital Rights Ireland and Online Rights Canada keep switching sides. I'm not familiar with either organization, and I don't know if they're really sneaky about their true intentions, but I have visited both sites and they seem to clearly be on the consumer rights side of the issue. If this is not the case, please mention it here so the matter can be settled. *The titles of the two groups, aside from getting increasingly and exceedingly long, keep changing positions to reflect the last editor's bias. This needs to stop. I suggest putting the creators-rights side first, as these organizations are larger and fewer. *The last section, which I tried to change from "DMCA" to "Related Laws and Bills" (subsequently divided by nation) keeps getting reverted. This needs to stop, because the DMCA is not the only applicable piece of legislation. *Links keep disappearing. Anyone can add links that they feel are applicable, but I would like to see removal of any such links discussed here beforehand. Specifically, the following links have been removed repeatedly with no reason given: ** IPac - US ** Open Rights Group - UK ** Pirate Party (english) - Sweden ** United States Pirate Party - US *More links to add: ** EFF on DMCA - US ** Eben Moglen - US ** Freedom to tinker - US ** Music Activism ** Cory Doctorow has a good introduction to the issue here ** Anti DMCA ** Artists against DRM ** Chilling Effects ** DMCA Comedy ** Access to knowledge - Geneva ** Weatherall's Law - AU ** Dr Peter Drahos on IP - AU ** DMCA in Australia - AU --Whosawhatsis 21:24, 13 July 2006 (UTC) :I've added some more to the above links there are stacks more sites out there. Go to a blog site and search for DMCA and youll get pages of people blogging on the implications. http://search.blogger.com/?ui=blg&q=dmca --Lucychili 16:48, 15 July 2006 (UTC) ::I separated out the links you added. This section is really a discussion of the revert war that caused this article to be locked, not about stuff to add (these links are in the current revision). Most/all of your links would be a good addition, but many of them don't fit the "organizations..." section, and should instead be in a "see also" section or similar. --Whosawhatsis 00:44, 16 July 2006 (UTC) Stop linkspam pages and spread propaganda, you idiot. 195.175.37.8 03:40, 15 July 2006 (UTC) :We are, and you're the one doing it. We're just doing what you say, Mr Jews Did Wtc. --Splarka (talk) 03:43, 15 July 2006 (UTC) ::LOL, who's we? You are the one censoring URLs like deleting links to www.jewsdidwtc.com without any discussion. :::"Stop linkspam pages and spread propaganda", and that is exactly what you said to do, to stop linkspam and propaganda, which jewsdidwtc is, silly goose. --Splarka (talk) 03:53, 15 July 2006 (UTC) ::::Yet, you didn't remove the linkspam here, fool. 195.175.37.6 03:58, 15 July 2006 (UTC) DRM and Content Distributers The problem with the page here is that the division of proconsumer procreator is not an accurate representation of the issue especially with regard to the international treaties and with regard to DRM and DMCA. Many of the groups interested in reform are interested in reform for consumers and creators and to redress the imbalance of publishers who are demanding exclusive rights at the expense of both groups. Happy to provide examples, I have some at http://www.lucychili.blogspot.com Generally the major publishing firms are using the creators as a meat shield for their own benefits. The changes lock artists out of their own content. DMCA is basically protecting the packaging at the expense of protecting the content. There is extensive legal thuggery attached, to the extent that nations may not trade with the US un til they agree to adopt this law. DMCA is standing between the creator and the consumer. Creators are able to look at different business models in order to distribute their work. The publishing companies are changing the laws to restrict peer to peer communications so that they retain control not only over distribution of media but over how you use it after you buy it. It also enables the publishers to restrict your future purchases and the technologies which are permitted to be developed or run on an existing product. Drahos describes it as Information Feudalism. The primary impact of this in terms of the way it is being used in US courts is for copyright holders to sue their competitors, for developing technologies which interact or compete with their own, and to sue academic researchers who criticise poor security in products. Technology projects are losing developers because the DMCA threatens to make them liable if someone uses a technology they developed for a bad purpose. The technology can only be seen as a good one if it already has a mass commercial value, prejudicing against new businesses in the sector and against independent inventors. There is also concern that because there is no recognition of community value as distinct from dollar value, open source projects are being specifically excluded from protection. Because Technological protection measures stand between the user and the content and the license on that work could vary it is difficult for the user to anticipate what kinds of uses will be considered a fair use. ie there is no way to have Fair Use of media with a TPM preempting that you are either a customer or a criminal. It is hard to negotiate with a technological lock, to explain to it that you are a student, or a researcher, or that you paid for this media but have reinstalled your computer so it might not recognise you now. TPM means that you cant look at the software you install. Two recent cases are Microsoft installing a phone home licence checker with their update and also threatening to turn off older licenced versions of their software if people did not upgrade(later postponed), and Sony who installed a rootkit on people's computers as part of their after sales interest in consumers. Because TPM protect the software from the owner of the computer that means that the ownership and control of your electronic devices has shifted. You are now effectively leasing permission to use the computer from the companies who have copyright on the hardware, software, drivers, media, etc. Connection between computers running different operating systems is at risk as developing technologies which interface with a DRM TPM product is something you need to have permission to do from the copyright holders - your competitors. This will result in less choice, less effective networking and monopoly. The media rights are not the only areas affected by this kind of IP hijacking. Patent laws which are blocking things like generic AIDs drug manufacture in India at a price which can be afforded by those who most need them in Africa. http://www.cptech.org/a2k/ --Lucychili 16:48, 15 July 2006 (UTC) :I made a separate sections on this because it was a bit confusing thrown in with the conversation about revert disputes. I'm not sure that the above, as written, is NPOV enough for the main article, but there are certainly valid points in it that deserve mention. We should definitely work on refining it to fit into the article. --Whosawhatsis 22:45, 15 July 2006 (UTC) I certainly feel that the current article is not NPOV and provides an inaccurate and biased impression. I know that I am strong in my feelings on this issue. Is there someone interested enough in the issue to follow the links and check that I am correct? Who could I ask to comment that would be seen as credible on the issue? Why dont we use the current article as the POV of the DMCA lobby, which it basically is, and you can use (cut down if you like) mine as the beginning of the reform lobby? This wiki if its going to deal with any issue content will need to be able to represent a range if ideas. For example there are very different perspectives among the groups who are pro reform. * proconsumer & creator A2K uses this model and looks to have a fair sharing of access and creator rights. * open source groups aiming for restriction of circumvention to copyright infringing activities, and to have protection for a range of business models. * academics who want to be able to research and comment without threat of litigation * components manufacturers who want to be able to develop for a range of systems and not be locked into specific partnerships. * makers inventors recyclers who will be using hardware to make new things which were not anticipated by the original manufacturer. * webcasters who are concerned that traditional broadcasters are aiming to have themselves considered as a special kind of boradcaster and provided rights at the expense of creators and other business models. * democracy advocates concerned about software providers who want to blackbox their systems effectively avoiding transparency regarding the accuracy of their products. * pirate parties which are representing strictly a consumer perspective as they see that the system is so broken that non compliance and non recognition of the broken system is the only way to change it. The IP laws being progressed through international treaties are primarily backed by large business groups who have pre-internet business models and wish to restrict the function of the internet to broadcast models, and to ban peer to peer kinds of projects. Wikis are not the only peer to peer creator/consumer model which has a lot to offer. Creative commons and music collaboration have a lot to gain from peer to peer sharing. Open source is largely peer to peer. Patents on medicines are another system of laws which are using this kind of compulsory USFTA and similar treaty process to gain traction around the world despite being counter to the community and business interests of smaller nations. Lucychili 02:39, 16 July 2006 (UTC) :I contributed most of the non-linked text in this article (of which there isn't much) and while I don't think that it came out biased, I agree with you on the matter and it's possible that I overcompensated a bit in my attempt to use NPOV. :It's true that DRM is primarily the work of content distribution dinosaurs desperately trying to prop up a dying system, and I tried to lay the groundwork for discussion of that with "digital rights of the creators and distributers of that content". The problem is, its difficult to approach this without it sounding like a petty and logically fallacious argument that the fact that piracy hurts big, faceless record labels almost exclusively, rather than hurting the artists as they would have you believe, makes piracy OK, which certainly isn't NPOV. That's why I avoided going into more detail until I could come up with the right wording. Besides, if it is listed as an argument against DRM, it will be hard to come up with any pro-DRM arguments, other than "Record labels are greedy." ... It's really difficult to cast those guys in a neutral light, much less a positive one. --Whosawhatsis 04:58, 16 July 2006 (UTC) Understood but I dont see why reformers have to be described as only pro consumer in order to make the record companies look good. It makes a balanced debate but isnt an accurate representation of the state of play. there are more than two perspectives in this debate and control of soundfiles is not the only impact. Lucychili 06:05, 16 July 2006 (UTC) :I totally agree, but it has to be said in a way that's entirely factual and backed-up so that the RIAA propaganda machine can't cry foul. --whosawhatsis? 06:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC) OK so if we start with the act and say this is the current law. People are looking for reform for a range of reasons and functions. Here are some of the perspectives and break the reform perspectives into different sections. Some are quite radical, some have a consumer&creator balance, some have niche concerns. If you like you can post my stuff as strictly a POV starter statement and invite people to critique and comment on it. Where is there room in the current structure for people to report on their new business models which enable them to be succesful online authors without DRM or TPM? Thanks for looking at this stuff. Lucychili 06:43, 16 July 2006 (UTC) Heh, you think piracy organizations don't use consumers as meat shields? The fact is, piracy does not hurt big companies like Microsoft, only small independent companies, unlike what RIAA wants you to believe. A business model without DRM is simple, store everything on a secure main central server, like with MMORPGs, you have to pay monthly fee to access the main central server, and you can't download stuff from the central server onto your own computer. and yes, it means even more restrictions on consumers. yes, DRM is probably dead, but hey, welcome to a much more dangerous world, ha ha ha ha Molester 07:36, 16 July 2006 (UTC) Its just not the kind of behaviour you expect legal business and government to be into. If a MMORPG online game does not limit your choices regarding what other games you play then it is still a step forward from DRM. How about authors using creative commons and sharing some stories, using advertising on those sites to sell other stories in paperback as per Cory Doctorow. Lucychili 08:03, 16 July 2006 (UTC) =Additions to the Main Article= :This section is to be added to the article, but is being written here since the article is currently locked. Please edit it as such. If you wish to add comments that do not belong in the main article, be sure to put them at the bottom, below the horizontal line. Additional unrelated sections for discussion should go above this one. --whosawhatsis? 23:06, 16 July 2006 (UTC) Intellectual property rights As a broad topic IP rights divide into rights to access/use, and rights to own/control ideas or information. From the ownership perspective these rights have been traditionally a way to give one person or group a headstart on specific information as a result of their previous loyalty, investment or innovation. They usually exist as special cases and work in conjunction with a default system of rules about what people usually can expect to do with information. Recently there has been a shift in this system which puts much more emphasis on the control side of the balance. Where previously copyright protections were a special consideration or exception to generic access rights, now we are requesting generic access rights as exemptions to copyright. This is a reaction to the internet which enables people to share information freely. Groups which have had control of information previously, because we could not previously share it directly, are responding to our ability to share peer to peer with laws to secure their position as holders of information rights. It has been primarily distributors of information who have been adjusting these laws in their own interests. As these issues have been global in effect, the DMCA lobby have successfully lobbied to have their perspective on digital rights implemented around the world as a prerequisite of trade negotiations with the United States. As a result there is a response from other parties to try and regain consideration, control and access to information. The internet also changes the landscape of information managment from the perspective of those who aim to control it. Publishers and distributors have far more access to the buyer's personal equipment and conversations which then has extensive implications for basic rights with information. For example there are moves from broadcasting groups to define the broadcasting process as a process which claims rights for the broadcaster at the expense of the artists webcasting or sharing their work online. Many groups are concerned about the current legal situation and are talking about these issues. * Some groups are working on developing alternative models which look at the needs of creators and consumers in an internet enabled world. * Some groups are looking to negotiate with the existing digital rights laws to establish exemptions for fair use and fair dealing. * Libraries have specific needs and are lobbying for those. * Universities have specific needs as researchers who need to be able to report freely and are lobbying for those. * Some groups are reacting directly to the existing system by using the name pirate to argue that the system is not valid in their eyes. Artists, musicians, authors and scientists and people who create with information have not traditionally had a strong voice in these negotiations as their rights were often expected to be represented by the distributing organisations. The internet provides an opportunity for these groups to find ways which they can directly manage and license their work. So basically there are opportunities which have emerged as a result of the internet. Some parties are aiming to establish right of way with those opportunities. People around the world who have not traditionally needed to lobby to have fair use and fair dealing rights to access information are at a disadvantage because the groups which have access to the international treaty process have been investing heavily in progressing their perspective. Internet enabled communications methods such as blogging have enabled people around the world to see each other and to discuss the concerns openly. The challenge for these groups is to translate that online perspective into effective voices at the treaty table. It has been suggested that this will take a mass recognition of the issue around the world by people, and pressure through electoral and government lobbying processes. Given that many of the people in this internet community are the people who do innovate and create and manage information there may be ways to effect change more directly. The challenge is to gain enough support to be recognised as an important voice at the treaty table. Public Domain * The public domain comprises the body of knowledge and innovation (especially creative works such as writing, art, music, and inventions) in relation to which no person or other legal entity can establish or maintain proprietary interests within a particular legal jurisdiction. This body of information and creativity is considered to be part of a common cultural and intellectual heritage, which, in general, anyone may use or exploit, whether for commercial or non-commercial purposes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain Fair use and fair dealing * Fair Use - USA * Fair dealing - AU A2K The goals of Access to Knowledge are embodied in a draft treaty, emerging from a call from Brazil and Argentina for a development agenda for the World Intellectual Property Organization. The treaty is intended to ease the transfer of knowledge to developing nations, and to secure the viability of open innovation systems all over the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_to_knowledge http://www.cptech.org/a2k/ Open Source Licences * GNU GPL - GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. The latest version of the license, version 2, was released in 1991. The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a modified version of the GPL, intended for some software libraries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License * Lesser GPL - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser_General_Public_License * GNU FFL - Free Document licence (as per this wiki) http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.txt * BSD licence - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_license * BSD and GPL comparison - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_and_GPL_licensing * Creative Commons - The Creative Commons website enables copyright holders to grant some of their rights to the public while retaining others through a variety of licensing and contract schemes including dedication to the public domain or open content licensing terms. The intention is to avoid the problems current copyright laws create for the sharing of information. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_commons Pirates This word has always been used fairly randomly to represent a kind of theft. With information there is a debate about whether information can be stolen as both groups still end up with the information. Copyright is framed regarding potential loss of income as a result. For purposes of digital intellectual property it is used to describe four main situations: * a home user working with material in a way which is not licensed. * a trader of material who is not licenced to trade that material. * a political party representing consumers who feel that the overall copyright system is broken and so they self declare as pirates. * some view the offensive(ie not defensive) copyright laws as a kind of piracy. Patents * origins * recent * regional * current - POV: Patents on medical research. South Africa is nto a party to the DMCA because they have had 20million people die of AIDS while patent groups shut down generic drug companies in India which were able to provide medicine at a cost African people could afford. Copyright Copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted by governments to regulate the use of a particular expression of an idea or information. At its most general, it is literally "the right to copy" an original creation. In most cases, these rights are of limited duration. The symbol for copyright is ©, and in some jurisdictions may alternately be written ©. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright The major change which is contentious and relevant to campaign.wiki is that there has been a broad shift from defensive copyright policy to offensive copyright policy. This means that fair use and fair dealing are now required to apply to be exempted from a copyright state, where as previously copyright was seen as an exception or special case to a default set of access rights. The new DMCA Digital Millenium Copyright Act also allows, through use of TPM's the copyright holder to limit other technologies which interact with the copyrighted product. This is seen, by groups wanting reform, as putting a fence around other people's copyright and freedoms rather than being a defense of the copyrighted content only. DRM and the DMCA Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a system, usually involving encryption, designed to prevent unauthorized used of content. Examples of DRM include the CSS encryption found in nearly all commercial DVD movies, and Apple's FairPlay encryption found in music downloaded from the iTunes Music Store. Use of these DRM schemes are mandated by movie studios and record labels (respectively) to prevent copyright infringement, but they also prevent non-infringing uses such as making backup copies of DVDs and playing iTunes music on non-Apple portable devices. The concept of DRM is fundamentally flawed, because software and devices used for authorized playback of media need to contain all of the information needed to decrypt that media, making it relatively easy to defeat. Jon Johansen has cracked several of these systems, earning himself the nickname "DVD Jon". Instead of coming up with a better system, proponents of DRM convince governments to enact Digital Millennium Copyright Acts, which among other things, make it illegal to crack DRM, explain how to crack it, or to make or distribute tools to do so. This use of weak protection compensated-for by legal threats only serves to ensure that hones people with no interest in copyright infringement must either put up with crippled functionality or become criminals, while there is little to deter others from pirating content or otherwise infringing upon copyrights. Broadcast flag TPM Technological protection measures are any kind of barrier between the user and the copyright material. Anything which has a call response to any other thing, has an interface. These interfaces are becoming a part of the copyright issue as distributors are building packaging for their content which uses TPM locks so that it can be difficult to interface with the material. These digital locks have been developed by copyright holders or distributors to manage how the user/owner/developer/inventor interacts with the material. TPMs have caused a large part of the concern because: * It means that the purchase of a digital information product is now a lease on that product for the amount of time and for the specific purposes permitted by the TPM. * A TPM has to assume to lock you out of material, ie no fair use, until you prove you are a current customer with permission to do what you want to do. This has proven to be a problem for example when people upgrade their computers and the TPM thinks it is not the same customer. * TPMs enable a software to be black boxed so you can't see if it has spyware included, or incldues someone elses copyright material, or to see if it needs improvement if there is a bug. ie They provide privacy for the publisher but not for the owner of the computer, as both of the monitoring systems installed by Sony and MS were specifically intended to report back to the parent companies about the customer's use of their computer. * The exemptions for when it is permissable to work around a TPM are contracting with each iteration of the DMCA act. A request to have an exemption for risk to critical systems and loss of life is being contested by the DMCA lobby in the current round. Who does DRM Protect? Record labels and movie studios that are members of organizations like the RIAA, MPAA, and WIPO would have the public believe that piracy hurts media creators, but it's almost exclusively their own profits that are hurt by unauthorized use. Through propaganda, these organizations use the sympathy and loyalty of artists' fans to protect their own interests. These companies are terrified of the options that the Internet and emerging business models create that threaten to make theirs obsolete. They use their influence to stay in business through legislation, rather than innovation. ---- How easy is it to implement tabbed wikis like moreperfect.org? http://www.moreperfect.org/wiki/index.php?title=United_States_Copyright_Law:_Read_More Might be nice to be able to describe a situation, some background, and a range of responses. Tabs are probably not the right idea. Just finding it hard to slice things nicely. The patent area is huge. It is at least as important as the digital information stuff, Its costing lives on a huge scale. I havent included it in the overview because I dont know enough about it. :I don't think tabs are the right idea. It will be a long article, that's what the index box is for. --whosawhatsis? 21:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)